20
I could smell the house even before I reached it. A deep, thick scent that was almost impossible to breathe in. There was blood, but there was more to it than that. It smelled of dead things, of bodies left to rot. Not even the smell of fresh blood could overpower the smell of death.
A scream came from inside, the first sound I’d heard since parking. It was a woman’s scream, one filled with unbearable agony. I couldn’t tell if she was a supe or Pureblood, and honestly, I didn’t care. From what Mikael had told me, I knew she was being tortured.
I didn’t screw around trying to peek in through the dark windows or sneak into the place. If this guy worked alone, then I wouldn’t have to worry about fending off minions. I could focus on simply finding the vamp and ending his torturous ways.
I kicked in the door with such force, one of the hinges tore clean off. The house was so old, it was a wonder it was still standing. As it was, the door slammed hard against the wall, a resounding crash that caused every other sound in the house to cease.
Both my gun and sword were in hand, poised to either fire or strike. While Strinowski might work alone, that didn’t mean he wasn’t dangerous. A vampire was a vampire, regardless of how many wolves and vamps he has around him. If I wasn’t careful, he could kill me before I knew he was there.
The silence caused by my entrance didn’t last long. The sound of agonized whimpering came from upstairs.
The front door opened into a small foyer. Traces of blood stained the floor and walls. The living room was just off that, but no one was in there. There was no furniture of any kind, just an empty room.
I started to turn away when I noticed the shades hanging over the windows. I might not have noticed anything was wrong with them, but I’d caught a glimpse of a lump of something on one.
Curiosity took over. I edged toward the blinds while keeping an eye on the stairs. No one had come tearing down them, so I had to hope Strinowski was hiding somewhere up them, waiting for me to find him.
I approached the windows warily. In the dark, it was hard to make out exactly what I was seeing, even with my superior vision. It wasn’t until I was almost on them that it all made sense.
The clump turned out to be hair. The stench was horrible, though it wasn’t as bad as the general smell of the place that I’d smelled from the outside. The blinds, all of them in the room, and quite possibly in the rest of the house, were made from skin. The side that had once faced inside someone’s body was turned toward the window. They left bloody streaks on the glass.
When Mikael had told me the guy tortured people, I hadn’t realized how bad it really was. This wasn’t just torture; it was pure brutality. How many of these skins were from Purebloods? Were there wolf and vamp skins as well? I wasn’t sure I wanted to find out.
I moved away from the nightmarish blinds and headed for the stairs. The woman was still whimpering upstairs, and I just had to hope Strinowski had been the cause of her scream. I hadn’t heard a window open or glass break or anything, so I was banking on him still being here.
The stairs creaked despite my best efforts to be quiet. The house was one of those giant farmhouses built back before modern heating. The house was cold, but not the bone-deep chill I would have expected. Chances were good Strinowski had battery-powered heaters somewhere inside or else his victims would freeze to death before he could torture them.
As I went up the stairs, I began to regret kicking in the door. Strinowski was known for being able to hide, to escape anyone who would search for him. All I’d really accomplished by entering as I had was to alert him that someone else was in his house. I could have easily tried the door first to see if it was unlocked. It would have been the smart thing to do.
But it was too late now. If I screwed this up because of my mistake, I knew I’d pay for it later. There was no use beating myself up for it now.
I reached the top of the stairs and scanned the dark hallway. There were only three rooms, two to the left, one to the right. A sliding door on the right-hand wall appeared to be a closet. All the doors were closed, and no light seeped beneath them. I listened, hoping to hear something other than the whimpering coming from the only room to the right.
I started forward, taking each step slowly, eyes scanning from left to right, up and down. I wouldn’t let this guy get the jump on me. I had no idea what he was capable of. If he was some sort of shifter, I wanted to be prepared.
The first door I came to was on the left. I pushed it open, bringing my gun up, finger ready to pull the trigger the moment I saw someone. The room was completely empty aside from the thick scent of feces and blood. The tiny bathroom was barely large enough for one person to stand in. There was no curtain in the shower, nothing at all in which the vamp could hide in or behind.
I closed the door to stifle the heavy reek and checked the closet across the hall. Like the bathroom, it was empty. I peered inside just in case before moving down the hall to the last two doors. The one to the right held the whimpering woman. The one to the left was silent.
I could hear the clink of metal on metal coming from the woman’s room. It reminded me of the sound a swing would make as its chains clanked in the wind. I started to reach for the door but stopped myself. Would my vamp be in the room with the woman? Or was he banking on me to investigate the room with the sounds first so he could make his move while my back was turned?
I stepped back from the door and turned to the one on the left. I waited, my breath held in the hopes of hearing the vamp breathing on the other side.
There was nothing. I reached out, grasped the doorknob, and pushed the door inward.
A flare of light flashed as soon as the door was open, blinding me. I fired reflexively just as something heavy hit me in the chest. I flew backward and slammed up against the wall, just barely keeping hold of my weapons.
Sharp fangs bit into my shoulder and I cried out. I brought the hilt of my sword down hard on the top of my attacker’s head, which was a mistake. The fangs sank deeper from the impact, causing me to cry out.
The fangs withdrew and I caught a glimpse of a mad face before his gaping mouth darted toward my face. I jerked back just in time, smacking my head hard against the wall as his fangs snapped shut just before my nose.
I knew I didn’t have much time. This guy was quick, but he was quite clearly crazy. Before he could pull back to launch another attack, I head-butted him. His nose crunched and he screamed. It sounded strangely feminine coming from him, but I didn’t have time to worry about that. He staggered back a step, and I used the space to bring my sword around.
It wasn’t a clean hit, but it did the job. The blade bit into his side and he slammed hard against the wall. He stood there a moment, shaking as the silver went to work, before finally collapsing.
I took a deep breath and nearly gagged from the stench of blood and sulfur. My attacker was completely naked, his body slick with blood and something else I didn’t even want to consider. His back was covered with lashes I assumed were self-inflicted. His eyes were blood-red, sliced from corner of the eye to the ear.
I grimaced as his tongue lolled from his mouth. It was forked and covered with my blood.
“Strinowski?” I said, rolling him onto his back with my foot. He grunted, but that was all he could manage with the silver running through his veins.
I stepped back when I saw him face-on. He had nothing but scar tissue between his legs where he’d removed his sexual organs. He didn’t have nipples either, or a belly button. I don’t even want to know how he managed the last.
His mouth was modified much like his eyes, cut at the sides, giving him an unnaturally long grimace. His tongue was longer than it should have been, and I wondered if he’d managed to pull it up from his throat somehow.
My eyes passed over him and I wanted to be sick. Just above where his belly button should have been was a long, horizontal slash. The skin flapped at the top, and I so didn’t want to see what was inside.
Strinowski stared at me with his blood-filled eyes. I think he was trying to smile, though the cuts on his face made that impossible.
I couldn’t stand to look at him anymore. The guy was quite clearly insane, and I was doing both him and everyone he’d ever hurt or planned on hurting a service by killing him.
I had to hack downward to take his head. The floorboards were old, and my silver blade bit into the wood and nearly got stuck. When I jerked it free, blood splattered across my pants and boots. Strinowski’s head rolled a few feet before coming to a stop facing the wall.
The whimpering from the other side of the door turned to moans. I walked over to it, just wanting this over with. I pushed the door open, readying myself for another attack, but after one look, I knew the woman was in no condition to hurt me.
Chains from the ceiling and floor kept her suspended in place, hanging in the air with her legs and arms spread as wide as they could go. She was naked and bleeding from seemingly everywhere. As I neared, I knew why.
A bundle of what I took at first to be rags turned out to be her skin. It looked molted and forlorn lying there like a discarded piece of clothing.
The woman looked at me with wild eyes. I had no idea how she was still alive, the damage was so extensive. Her entire face was gone, including her eyelids. All that was left was muscle and bone and gristle. Her teeth stood out without lips to cover them, eyes bulging from skinless sockets.
“Jesus,” I said, covering my nose. During her torture, her bowels had repeatedly released. Strinowski hadn’t bothered to clean it up. He’d left the stinking pile where it fell.
“Kill me,” the girl croaked. I had no idea how old she was, doubted anyone could tell. No one could recognize this as anything remotely human anymore. “Please.” She started whimpering.
I blinked a few times, tried to sort everything out in my head. There were sharp knives lying on a table next to the woman. There was also a bottle of pills that contained what I assumed was something that would keep the victim alive and aware during the torture. Beside that was a small flashlight. I guess Strinowski kept it there so his victims could see the damage he was doing to them.
The windows behind the woman were covered with skin, these ones hairy, as if they’d come from an animal. A small space heater hummed under the table. It was so quiet I could barely hear it over her whimpering.
I didn’t know what to do. Normally, when I found the victims of vamps, I let them go so they could return to their families. Sometimes the victims didn’t survive. Sometimes they were dead even before I arrived.
But this? I’d never seen anything like this before. Even with all the blood, my disgust completely overrode any hunger I might have had. It was just too much of a shock for that part of me to function.
“Kill me!” the woman screamed. She started vibrating on her chains, bloody saliva dripping from her mouth. It was more than just shaking too. She was having a seizure. Her eyes rolled up, though I could still see the iris because there really was nowhere for them to go.
I raised my gun and put her out of her misery. The bullet hit her with a muffled thump and she immediately slumped in her chains. Blood and urine dripped from her as she died.
I turned and staggered out of the room. I had to lean against the wall to catch my breath. I was feeling sick and dizzy, almost unable to think. What had gone on in this house? Why hadn’t anyone killed this guy before?
Why hadn’t I?
I shuddered and made for the stairs. I wasn’t completely sure I’d gotten Strinowski, but I hoped to hell I did. The guy who attacked me could have been one of his victims for all I knew, driven mad by the tortures inflicted upon him.
The smell of death got worse as I stepped into the kitchen and found the cellar door. There was nothing in the kitchen aside from the empty cabinets and sink. I stood in front of the door, wondering if I should go down or not. Now that I knew to listen for it, I could hear the hum of a couple of heaters coming from downstairs.
Finally, I decided I couldn’t leave until I knew if anyone was alive down there. I opened the door and immediately the sound of chains clinking reached my ears. I reached for a light switch, but when I flicked it up and down, nothing happened.
Someone started crying and I knew I’d have to investigate in the dark. I could see, but I would have preferred to view the horrors I knew waited for me with a light on.
I went down, gun pointed forward. I wasn’t sure what to expect or how many people I’d find, but I had to do it. I prayed it would only be two or three more at the most. Any more than that and it might drive me crazy.
The first man came into view and I froze halfway down the stairs. He was a fully shifted werewolf, though his fur was gone. His skin had a strange, wrinkled look to it, and it took me only a moment to realize that because he was a were, his skin had grown back after being removed.
He snarled at me and thrashed in his chains. I’d seen crazed wolves before, seen them affected by the full moon, seen them hopped up on drugs, yet this was so much worse. Saliva dropped from his muzzle, tinged red. He gnashed his teeth, eyes bugging out of his head.